Medical Week Update

We had a lot of doctor's appointments this week. I decided rather than update each time I had one I would just do it all at once. So this was the end of our medical week. I am going to have more appointments in the future, but for now we'll discuss the big stuff. I was going to go youngest to oldest, but then I thought I better just do smallest updates to biggest updates. So here goes.

CJ
CJ had to have his ears rechecked from his ear infection earlier in the summer. So he was weighed. He gained 2 pounds since his 18 month checkup in June. He's now 24 pounds 9 ounces. And the even better news is his ears are clear. What a relief since he never finished that last round of antibiotics due to his allergic reaction. So he's growing and moving and shaking as he should be. Keeping me on my toes.

Natalie
Natalie's 10 year well child visit was today. She now weighs 79 pounds and is 53 inches tall. That's 60th percentile for weight and 25th for height. The doctor did say she needs to watch what she eats. She's solid is how she put it. Not overweight, but she needs to make sure to make healthy food choices. Good advice for us all though. She unfortunately didn't do so great on her vision test even with her glasses. I've been meaning to make that eye doctor appointment. It's about time we go back. Other than that all is going well. The doctor discussed her changing body with her again and how not to listen to the kids on the playground. To check with me before she believes what other children are saying. She told us about the book "The Care and Keeping of You" which we've already been reading. And what a great book that is for helping young girls transition. So I'm happy to say that we're already right on top of everything and doing what we're supposed to. She's still saying she's in the beginning stages of puberty. So I guess we do still have a while before we have to worry about a period. She will be very well prepared when it does happen because we've been discussing all of this stuff since last year. And that's about it. She got one shot (the Hep A vaccine) and we were done.

Kaitlyn
Now why would I have to save Kaitlyn for last you may be wondering? I mean we've got CJ who's had weight issues, allergy issues, and ear issues. Then there's Natalie who's getting to that age of puberty. But Kaitlyn well she's just 7 what could be going on with her that's so big? First of all I want to say it's nothing super serious. It's something I have been begging for answers about her for a long time. She's healthy and growing well though. She's 47 1/2 inches tall and 57 pounds. She too was in the 25th percentile for height like her sister (we're short people) and in the 75th percentile for her weight. Oddly enough the doctor isn't too concerned about her weight. She said that was good. She passed her eye and ear exams. And physically it appears everything is doing what it should be. She too needed the Hep A vaccine so she got that without a problem. So where does the problem come in? Well, the doctor asked if we had any concerns. So of course I had to pipe up about our concerns with Kaitlyn's reading. The doctor asked a few questions. How is she in school (behavior wise)? How does she do in math? How's her attention. I told her she's well behaved and quiet in school, she's great at math, but I think her attention is very off. So she whips out this paper she wants me and Joe to fill out about her. She thinks it's ADHD or probably actually ADD. She doesn't have the hyperactive tendencies. So she told me she could do this with or without the school. Either way if we fill out the paper and upon our report it appears she has it we'll go from there. But when she was talking about it and how it gets missed in girls a lot because they are well behaved in school and quiet usually, but they also work really hard with little results I was like this is Kaitlyn. I told her of the testing I made the school do on her to see if she had a learning disability and how they said she didn't, but how the results of the tests were baffling to them. She wanted to see that. She said if in their testing they said anything about her attention that they could use that. There's a law where the school can't tell us that they think she has ADHD because then they can just pawn the children off on doctors and give them meds instead of going deeper and finding out what's really going on. So after Kaitlyn's appointment I filled out the paper and Joe filled out the paper and I found the testing from the school. I brought it with me to the doctor today and after we discussed Natalie I showed everything to the doctor. She was a little disappointed that there weren't more ADHD testing in there, but I think that's mostly because they didn't want to test to begin with. They wanted to wait until the middle of 2nd grade with her and they were focusing more on a reading disability. I've expressed my concerns about her attention to the school a lot though. So I guess in a way it's a little shocking that they wouldn't do more testing on that. So anyways, the doctor said since there are numerous mentions from the school psychologist about her attention and because there are such huge discrepencies in her numbers on some of the tests that raises some red flags for her. It's not enough for the school to label her with a learning disability because her scores averaged out, but it's enough that the doctor is worried and believes she would benefit from interventions and medication. So we go back to discuss all of our options with the doctor and where we go from here in 2 weeks. We have to get a sitter. I'm not too sure I want to medicate her and I want to make sure there are no other problems going on here too so I'm also going to see if we can maybe get a referral to a neuro pyschologist to make sure we're treating her correctly. I am excited to have someone giving a name to what's making reading so difficult for Kaitlyn though. We'll see what the next weeks and months have in store for us with her. I want her to be able to focus on those words to read them correctly so if this is what we have to do then so be it.

All in all I'm feeling good about these doctor's appointments. I'm happy to see some weight on CJ and to know that he is healthy. I'm happy that Natalie is growing and right on track with puberty. I'm happy that Kaitlyn is healthy and that we might be getting a way to help her with her struggles in reading. Now, aside from this appointment Joe and I have with the doctor in 2 weeks we likely shouldn't have to go back until November. Well, except maybe with Kaitlyn if we put her on meds for adjusting them or something I suppose.